The Fly Girls of Long Beach

Early aviation was exciting and horribly dangerous. The planes were made of wood and cloth and held together with wire. The open cockpit threw many a flyer out and onto the ground below. The earliest aeroplanes were gliders and relied solely on the wind for power. Planes powered by gasoline engines placed behind the pilot, filled the skies with deadly fumes and could explode or crush a flyer if the landing was too hard.

Even from the earliest days of U.S. aviation, women were usually relegated to sit behind the pilot instead of being the pilot. Women were also allowed to be “wing walkers” on stunt planes or to parachute out of air balloons or aeroplanes.

Georgia “Tiny” Broadwick became the first woman to jump out of an air balloon in the early 1900s and then out of an airplane in 1913. The US Army was so impressed with her skill and the silk parachutes she made, that they invited her to show male pilots how to use a parachute.

Flying was considered a male sport. Women found it difficult to get someone to teach them to fly. However, none of this stopped the women who wanted to fly. Only a few persevered.

Remarkably, Long Beach can claim several of these early “fly girls.”

Did you know that Amelia Earhart came to see the Long Beach Air Circus in 1920 and was so awestruck by the flyers that she asked for a ride? She got one the next day from Long Beach Poly High School graduate, Frank Hawks. She went on to take flying lessons from Nita Snook but they fought and Amelia completed her lessons and soloed with Long Beach pilot John Montijo.

Then Gladys O’Donnell came along. With 10 hours of instruction from her husband, Lloyd, she became the first woman licensed to fly in Long Beach in 1929. That year several other women became licensed to fly: Ruby Sweeley, Edna Coulter, Melba Gorby, Virginia Blume, L.M. Partee and Jessie McWhinney. By 1930 there were 79 women licensed to fly in Long Beach.

1929 brought many firsts in aviation for women. It was the year Gladys O’Donnell beat Amelia Earhart in the Women’s National Air Derby and then together with 97 other women aviators started the 99s, the first group for women pilots. In 1930, Long Beach hosted the Women’s Air Derby which finished in Chicago. O’Donnell won first place.

In 1940, Fran Berra at age 16, became licensed to fly and eventually got her commercial license and a flight instructor rating. She also became a free fall parachutist, ferried surplus aircraft after WWII, and became a flight instructor. Berra particularly loved air racing. She helped test potential women astronauts in the 1960s.

During WWII, tens of thousands of “Rosie the Riveters” made the airplanes that helped win the war. Once completed, the 25 members of the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) stationed at Long Beach Airfield, took on the dangerous task of flying the planes for the first time to military installations across the U.S. The Long Beach WASP were commanded by 23-year-old, Barbara Erickson. Erickson was the only WASP award the Air Medal for completing numerous flights of almost every type of plane produced during WWII.

These women paved the way for other women to fly and to serve their country as military pilots.

gerrie@beachcomber.news